


Bad Day

by brotherfuckers



Series: Striderclan [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Orange Soda, Sushi, Videogames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 21:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brotherfuckers/pseuds/brotherfuckers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bro is a decent big brother when Dirk has a terrible day at school, treats him to orange soda, sushi, and video games</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Day

When the door slams hard enough to rattle the sword rack halfway down the wall, Bro looks up from the project he is working on, a custom order for a cast of puppets to be used at a children’s theater. The scowl on Dirk’s face is dark enough to invoke images of thunderstorms at midnight. Bro throws a questioning eyebrow up at Dave who is doing his best to stay out of his twin’s path as Dirk stomps across the apartment to their room, slamming another door just as hard. Dave grabs the discarded backpack and puts it with his own out of the way before going over to Bro.

“Bad day.”

“I’d say. What happened? Even when his boyfriend left the country he wasn’t nearly this upset.”

“He spent the morning giving a presentation on his Human Algorithm Learnable only to have the teacher tell him that it wasn’t an acceptable program since he used his own language instead of the two given options. Even those two options can’t do nearly as much as his own at maybe half the speed. They also claimed that he has photoshopped some screen captures of the program and then claimed that I was sending the responses when he showed the working model on his phone. Then there was a fire drill in the afternoon during his test and the teacher won’t reschedule it and didn’t give them any extra time claiming that he will only grade half of the test, and you know how Dirk is about his tests. And then his locker got stuck open. A girl ran into him in the hallway, accident, but still knocked all of his stuff and he lost a set of pens under the lockers. He was nearly late to his last period because the teacher in the class before wouldn’t stop lecturing even though that’s his farthest distance between classes. And to top it all off, they ran out of orange soda at lunch,” Dave finished with a sympathetic look.

“Well fuck.” Bro reached across the table to grab a takeout flyer for a local sushi place. “Order his favorites. I gotta run an errand. Make sure he doesn’t leave.”

“Sure.”

Bro grabs his wallet and keys and head out.

* * *

He comes home with a heavy bag of gently clinking glass just as the delivery guy arrives. He takes the food and enters the apartment. Dave is sitting on the futon watching the television and the door to their room is still firmly shut.

“Hey kid, when I get your bro to come outta his room, you go in and lock yourself in. Have a Skype date with the jungle girl or something.”

“‘kay, but how are you going to get him out? I haven’t heard anything.”

“Dun worry your little pea head.” Bro heads around to the coffee table to organize his fares. Dave picks up his order but leaves the rest for Bro and Dirk. Bro grabs two tall glasses and fills them with ice. “Get up and get ready.” Bro goes over to the door and rapts sharply on it with his knuckles. “Dirk, get your ass out here now.”

“Fuck off,” comes the muffled reply.

“Oh fuck no. Get out here now.”

“No.”

“Do it or, bless your heart, I’ll come down the fire escape and drag your ass to the roof.”

“Fine! Asshole!” The anger is plenty evident in Dirk’s voice. The door is flung open but Bro stops it from bouncing back into Dirk. Sharp angled glasses don’t do much to hide the rough flush across Dirk’s face, presumably from being upset. None of the Striders were pretty criers.

Bro ignores all of that and simply makes a sweeping gesture at the couch. As soon as Dirk clears the door, Dave slips inside with his food and silently closes the door behind him. Dirk pauses when he sees the spread on the table. He instantly notices his favorite items off of the familiar menu. A line of orange sodas from a variety of different brands and geographical sources stand behind the food. Two glasses wait to be filled.

Bro comes along and shoves Dirk ahead, pushing him to take a seat. Bro settles down next to him. Dirk is still a bit hesitant about the whole situation. He’s used to being wary of Bro, but these actions seem uncharacteristically... nice.

“I want ya to tell me everythin’ about that Human Learner thingy.”

“Proto-Hal?”

“Hal? Like 2001: A Space Odyssey Hal?”

“Well it stands for Human Algorithm Learnable, but yes, I thought the reference was ironic.”

“Ironic as fuck.” Bro grabs the box of food and passes it to Dirk before randomly grabbing a bottle of orange soda and pouring them both a glass. “Now tell me about ‘im.”

* * *

Three hours, five bottles of orange soda, and one short phone call later, Dirk is in a much better mood. There was nothing Bro could do about the butchered test but Dirk’s project in his computer/robotics class was fully reinstated with the only condition that he bring his own computer into class to show the compiler work in real time. But all thoughts about school are set aside for a violent round of some dollar-bin, piece-of-shit, two-player video game.

Dirk’s laughter and Bro’s cursing eventually draws Dave out of this room and he ends up lounging across the back of the futon watching his brother’s play.

**Author's Note:**

> For more information please check out our work at striderclan.tumblr.com; we have more stories, head canons, art/pictures.


End file.
